Here’s an idea for a leftist fantasy novel I came up with: A prince/princess of some fairy tale style kingdom is sent abroad on a diplomatic mission, ends up having their propaganda bubble popped, learns about communism, and vows to enact worker rule once their parents die. Once they come into power, how might they set about this if they started from a feudal society, while making sure counter revolutionaries (in this case, like nobles, clergy, other members of the royal family, etc) don’t reverse what they’re doing?
There’s the story of Puyi, the last Chinese emperor. I’m not sure if he deliberately gave up his powers, but it’s well known he was re-educated and got inserted into Chinese socialist society.
(by the way, you’ve been consistently posting about book ideas over the last months, why don’t you create and moderate a community for it? that’d be cool)
I’ll have to read about the emperor you spoke then, very interesting bit of history I just learned about!
There’s already !writing on lemmy.ml, as well as !worldbuilding, but neither seem very active. Admittedly, I’m a world builder at heart more than an actual story writer. I like to flesh out worlds and write detailed lore descriptions in the style of a textbook or paper, but when it comes to actually writing the plot for a story, I find myself struggling, especially with pacing and adding in too many characters.
I’m also working on a leftist novel, though it’s not as leftist as your own.
I know that @felipeforte@lemmygrad.ml and I have also talked about making our own stories and fictional works with socialsit/communist themes. And I’ve talked with people in the CPUSA about this.
I’ll hold off before starting a collective, but you have a neat idea.
I just thought of this: would a communist country realistically even engage in diplomacy with a fantasy style absolute monarchy? Seems to me that the argument could be made by communists that engaging them in any way would be implicitly supporting feudalism and massive worked exploitation. If the catalyst of the plot hinges on this, then I should probably make sure that it can happen. What do you think?
Sounds great!
And keep in mind: Stalin said that it is was right to support certain feudal, monarchical, and bourgeois forces himself. But again: it’s only a story and I think that you shouldn’t take it too seriously. It’s obviously not going to be completely “realistic” and you could even put a disclaimer saying that it’s just you having fun and telling a story for others’ entertainment, among other things.
Stalin said that it is was right to support certain feudal, monarchical, and bourgeois forces himself.
Huh, interesting. Can you elaborate on why this would be beneficial?
No, no, I mean support them against the most reactionary forces, including the United States and the Western forces.
Basically: “critical support.”
That makes sense. Thanks!
No problem, comrade!
Have you seen Legends of the Galactic Heroes? One of the main characters, Reinhard von Lohengram was born in a monarchy, him being a poor noble. He escalated positions in the military until he became the Kaiser, and omce he got there he took the land from the nobles and gave it back to the people, and also in one episode he mentions they should give the power over the means of production of a sector (I think it was agrary) to the people. While he is certainly not a communist, some of his politics are certainly socialists, and I think it can work very well for your purpose.
He’d be supported by the Soviet Union; it’s not unheard of for the CCCP to have a policy of sorting certain feudal and bourgeois forces in order to advance the revolution.
It is not canon with our history, tho, he lives in Odin and Earth does not have a central political role in their stellar systems.
Never watched Legend of the Galactic Heroes, though I probably should sometime as I’ve heard good things.